From Patrick Moberg
Oh hey it’s you! Hey honey! Look who’s back! Man, we’ve missed you.
How have you been? We’re okay…we’ve been thinking good things for you the whole time you’ve been away. Looks like life’s had it’s way with you. Ouch. Where’d you pick up those scrapes?
It was hard when you first left. We were so there with you when you had your big shock. It was hard to watch you get angry like that. You hurt a lot of people you know. I mean we knew we’d be safe, y’know we’ve known each other a long time, but it was really hard to watch you go through that. We didn’t take personally all those things you said about us. You were angry, acting rash. And now look at you…tired, hungry, hurt and you look like you’re out of money too.
But look, it’s good to have you back. We really have missed you. Things haven’t been the same since you’ve been gone. I knew if we kept the candles burning for you, you’d come back.
Come on in and take a load off. Have something to eat. Take a few days and then we can help you think about how to make things right again. Lots of people are gunning for you right now. You look like you could use a few friends.
I believe you when you say you want to change. It’s not going to be easy, but if you need our help, we’ll give you a hand. Who knows? Maybe the tables will be turned someday!
Alright, take it easy now…you’ve had a long trek to get here. Go slow. Get some rest. We’ll talk more in the morning
Man…it’s good to see you again.
I was listening to a dharma talk by Steve Armstrong (listen to it here) on working with the defilements of the mind. He begins the talk by quoting the Buddha who says that the pure mind is radiant and bright and that everything else is the result of being visited by defilements. In Buddhism these include greed, aversion and delusion.
Less important than the dharma content of this talk though is a line that Steve Armstrong said that zinged home with me. He said that when we sit down to meditate, we should not expect to have a “good experience” but rather, we should understand that this is the place where we meet the mind’s defilements head on.
That really resonated with me. It seems an important feature of any practice that one recognize that the reason for practicing is to meet challenge, difficulty and frustration. In that sense any practice becomes a dojo, a place of training. In meditation we sit to discover how our mind works and to work with what we find. In my own martial arts practices of taekwondo and warrior of the heart, it is about confronting physical challenges and fear.
And it made me think about what it means also to be a practitioner of conversational arts. Many of the places I work are difficult places, and I can see now that what makes me a practitioner is that I willingly choose those places because they are hard. That is where I practice, and the practice is learning to use the social spaces between us as people to make good happen in the world.
Practice is not a retreat from the world, it is confronting your sharpest edge. Work, for me, is like that too.
I first saw Van Jones speak at the Pegasus conference last year, and I know of his work through some of the people I have been working with in the Food and Society network. Here is an article summing up his thoughts on a New Green Deal, which brings social and economic justice together. Having done some work this past week setting up a national network of urban Aboriginal economic development practiitoners and thinkers, I think what Van is pointing to here has immediate relevence for Canada as well:
To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people. The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism. Eco-populism would always foreground those green solutions that can improve ordinary people’s standard of living–and decrease their cost of living.
But bringing people of different races and classes and backgrounds together under a single banner is tougher than it sounds. I have been trying to bridge this divide for nearly a decade. And I learned a few things along the way.
What I found is that leaders from impoverished areas like Oakland, California, tended to focus on three areas: social justice, political solutions and social change. They cared primarily about “the people.” They focused their efforts on fixing schools, improving healthcare, defending civil rights and reducing the prison population. Their “social change” work involved lobbying, campaigning and protesting. They were wary of businesses; instead, they turned to the political system and government to help solve the problems of the community.
The leaders I met from affluent places like Marin County (just north of San Francisco), San Francisco and Silicon Valley had what seemed to be the opposite approach. Their three focus areas were ecology, business solutions and “inner change.” They were champions of “the planet”–rainforests and important species like whales and polar bears. Many were dedicated to inner-change work, including meditation and yoga. And they put a great deal of stress on making wise, earth-honoring consumer choices. In fact, many were either green entrepreneurs or investors in eco-friendly businesses.
Every effort I made to get the two groups together initially was a disaster–sometimes ending in tears, anger and slammed doors. Trying to make sense of the differences, I wrote out three binaries on a napkin:
1. Ecology vs. Social Justice
2. Business Solutions (Entrepreneurship) vs. Political Solutions (Activism)
3. Spiritual/Inner Change vs. Social/Outer Change
People on both sides of the equation tended to think that their preferences precluded any serious consideration of the options presented on the opposite side.
Increasingly, I saw the value and importance of both approaches. I thought, What would we have if we replaced those “versus” symbols with “plus” signs? What if we built a movement at the intersection of the ecology and social justice movements, of entrepreneurship and activism, of inner change and social change? What if we didn’t just have hybrid cars–what if we had a hybrid movement?
I wouldn`t be surprised to see Van Jones in the new administration in the US when Obama wins next week.